Honorable Mention
The toughest omissions from this team for me were Alperen Sengun of Turkey, Pascal Siakam of Cameroon, Josh Giddey of Australia, and Bogdan Bogdanovic of Serbia. Sengun, from the Rockets, has a case, but there are too many centers already on the team. There’s probably just too much overlap in skills between him and Sabonis and Jokic. Sorry, Alpie.
Siakam, likewise is just on the outside looking in due to strength at his position. He doesn’t offer quite enough shooting to make sense over any of the bigger wing guys already on the team. Giddey would be useful as another reliable ballhandler, but his lack of shooting would be too detrimental.
Bogie is interesting to me because he would be a fairly unique player on this team, a true sniper in the backcourt. Ultimately I just don’t think he’s talented enough to displace any of the guys on the roster. They have plenty of shooting to get by, and it’s hard to envision a realistic scenario where they’d actually need Bogie on the floor.
There are a number of other worthy choices for this team and it just goes to show how far the international game has come and how many good NBA players hail from all over the globe. This list is sure to grow in the future, and the roster will probably get deeper and deeper.